Workers Die In Bangladesh Factory While Making Clothes For Walmart And Others
2012/11/25
By Lorraine Devon Wilke

Dhaka factory in flames @ IndiaToday.in

In an stunning cultural juxtaposition, Black Friday merchants counted their profits and victory-pumped shoppers celebrated their “scores” in malls throughout the U.S., while factory workers on the other side of the world who made many of the clothing items shoppers bought this weekend jumped from windows of a seven-story factory in the effort to save their lives in a late Saturday inferno. Many of them were not successful; as of the most recent count, 124 of those workers have died, with many more injured.

In the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka, a large garment run by Tazreen Fashions, one of the many factories in the area that provide product for American companies including Wal-mart, JC Penney’s, the Gap, Levi Strauss, Kohl’s, Zara, H & M, and others, burst into flames Saturday night in a fire (of currently unknown origin) that started on the bottom floor of the building and quickly rushed up the other floors, trapping workers with no way to descend from the building. As India Today reports:

By Sunday morning, firefighters had recovered 115 bodies, fire department Operations Director Maj. Mohammad Mahbub said. He said another 9 people who had suffered injuries after jumping from the building to escape the fire later died at hospitals.

Mahbub said firefighters recovered 69 bodies from the second floor of the factory alone. He said most of the victims had been trapped inside the factory, located just outside of Dhaka, with no emergency exits leading outside the building.

Township Clerk Polly Skolarus said the Republican challengers did not challenge voters' registration, but transmitted their data electronically to state party officials during the Nov. 6 election.

Skolarus said none of the GOP poll challengers arrived with lists of voters they planned to challenge, as is customary.

"There were a lot of people that were not happy that those people were sitting there. They felt it was an invasion of their privacy," she said."The Republican Party making the decision to put them in every precinct did them no favors. I think it made them enemies," Skolarus added.

Note: THIS is in an area that the township next to the burial place of former Michigan Governor and father of the (R) candidate, George Romney (Brighton, Michigan). It's about as "red" a township as it gets in Michigan. Yet all precincts had voter intimidation republicans on duty, to offend voters going to the polls.

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Southfield Twp. voter appears to die, then asks 'Did I vote?'
By Tom Greenwood and Rod Beard
The Detroit News

Southfield Township — Sometimes dead men really do get to vote.

Ty Houston, 48, a home care registered nurse, was toiling on his absentee ballot Monday afternoon when things got strange at township offices on 13 Mile.

"I was filling out the form as were an elderly couple sitting at a nearby table," said Houston on Tuesday. "His wife, who was helping him fill out the ballot, asked him a couple of questions but he didn't respond. She screamed for help and I went over to see what I could do."

Houston laid the victim on the floor and went to work.

"He was dead," Houston said. "He had no heartbeat and he wasn't breathing. I started CPR, and after a few minutes, he revived and started breathing again. He knew his name and his wife's name."

What happened next astounded Houston and the victim's wife.

"The first question he asked was 'Did I vote?'"

Dumbfounded, the man's wife told him that whether he voted was the least of their concerns.

"She told him 'Your life is my concern,'" Houston said.

According to Houston, the man — who had a tracheotomy in his throat — gulped down a few more breaths and then told her there are only two things that are important to me: "That I love you and that I finished what I came here to do … vote."

EMS personnel took the pair to William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, but only after the couple wrapped Houston in thanks and hugs.

"It was God's divine word that I be there. Originally, I was just going skip the ballot and just go to lunch that day," Houston said.